


Wolf

by DustyForgotten



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Background Relationships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 19:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13841550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/DustyForgotten
Summary: When I run through the deep dark forest long after this begunWhere the sun would set the trees were dead and the rivers were noneAnd I hope for a trace to lead me back home from this placeBut there was no sound, there was only me and my disgrace





	Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> [Wolf by First Aid Kit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f5zKLdkTRY)

It’s under a full moon, the half-dead wolf in him screaming against the potion, against this pathetic slip of a man, that he truly knows himself. Careful preparation, months of work, planning and hiding and the reaffirmations that this is what he really wants, he frees the wolf.

It’s not painful, it’s not capable of causing harm to anyone— but neither is— it wants only to stalk the forest floor, and finally, he can let it.

He goes to his wife when it’s done, brushes his teeth and finds they do not ache, sleeps, and does not dream. He soothed the beast by the moon, and it snoozes contentedly in his chest tonight.

* * *

 

It’s over tea with Tonks, both engorged in their own reading, that it strikes him. He looks up from his cup, breathes through the nose, because he refuses to sniff, to draw the air over his tongue and taste what he’s found.

“Remus?” she asks, reaching across the table for his hand. The heat of her touch brings his mind back from the woods. “Are you alright?”

He smiles, and takes her hand in turn. “Of course.”

Of course, having never seen a real smile from him to compare, she believes it.

* * *

 

Footsteps crush the ground cover like his childhood home came crashing down, and he runs, silent for his size and driven by instinct, the smell of predator clawing up his nostrils.

A pressure wave hits the tree to his right, and he shrieks in surprise, quickly sprinting away from the place where he gave himself away. The one to his left is closer, pops his ear, but he pins them back, stays quiet, and keeps moving.

The third doesn’t miss.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve chased down an animagus,” Remus admits, walking casually towards his caught quarry. He tucks away his wand, seemingly satisfied that the man won’t be going anywhere, although confusion falls over his features as he utters, “Bill?”

Bill tries to dust the dirt from his pant legs, but finds it useless, and seats himself on the ground instead. “Professor Lupin.”

“I’m not your teacher, Bill.”

“Then why do I feel I’m about to be scolded?”

The Marauders only did it for him, McGonagall to further her transfiguration. Why would Bill Weasley, a newlywed, who narrowly escaped lycanthropy, want to become an animal? “You’re not registered, are you?”

Bill shrugs, sighs, “Not yet.”

Overcome by curiosity, Remus questions, “However did you find the time—”

“While I was in Egypt.”

Remus imagines him pushing a mandrake leaf around his mouth while reading over hieroglyphs, and it looks perfectly rational. Like the process of becoming an Animagus is anything other than exceedingly inconvenient. “Why go through the trouble?”

“Have you ever felt your bones itch?”

The sounds of the wood overtake them for a moment. “… Every full moon.”

He looks a little off-centre, and Remus realizes, Bill’s hiding the scarred side of his face in his own shadow. “There’s no sympathy in not being a werewolf. You were right, you know. You were joking, but you were right. I can’t stand meat if I can’t taste the blood, I see someone run and it’s all I can do not to chase them down. Fleur’s woken me before because I’m whining, and she can’t sleep through the sound of something in pain. I take walks to calm my nerves, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t feel right unless it’s like this.”

Hair falls over his face, and Remus suspects it’s intentional. He wouldn’t wish his curse on anyone, but he can’t imagine the wolf without the moon. Thinks Moony would have shredded through his skin at the chance of a hunt. He does, anyway.

“It’s freezing,” Remus says, as if Bill, shivering, hasn’t noticed. He huffs, and thinks he sees his breath in the moonlight. Wants desperately to be out of it. “Come on. Tonks will want to know where I’ve run off to, and we need to get you registered.”

Bill glares like an animal that doesn’t trust the smell of him, but Remus crouches, and offers his hand, like he might to a prospective familiar. Bill relaxes into the fox, scents it, accepts with a touch of his wet nose. Remus scoops the creature in his arms, muzzle curling into the crook of his elbow, and takes him home.


End file.
